SOURCE:    Vacation Tracker
TITLE:     How to Create Custom Leave Types (Vacation, Sick, WFH)
URL:       https://vacationtracker.io/knowledge-base/how-can-i-create-and-configure-leave-types/
LANG:      en
PUBLISHED: 2020-12-29
UPDATED:   2026-01-20
READING:   3 min
SUMMARY:   Create leave types such as vacation, sick days, working from home or bereavement, then give each one its own quota, approval rules and settings per location.

How to Create Custom Leave Types (Vacation, Sick, WFH)

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How Can I Create and Configure Leave Types?

A Leave Type is a category of time off — Vacation, Sick Day, Working from Home, Bereavement, Maternity, and so on. The Leave Type holds the basic identity (name, color, calendar status); the rules around it — quota, approval, accruals, rollover — live on Leave Policies, which tie a Leave Type to a Location.

Common Leave Types most teams set up: Paid Time Off (Vacation), Sick Day, Working from Home, Maternity Leave, Bereavement, Unpaid Leave. You can have as many as you need, and each one can apply to some or all of your Locations with different rules per Location.

Mental model

A Leave Type is the label ("Sick Day"). A Leave Policy is the rulebook for that label at a specific Location ("Sick Day in Canada: 10 days/year, approval required, half-day minimum"). One Leave Type usually has multiple policies — one per Location it's enabled in.

Step 1: Create the Leave Type

Sign in at app.vacationtracker.io with an Admin account.
In the left-hand menu, expand Leave Setup and click Leave Types.
Click the Create a Leave Type button at the top-left of the Leave Types table.

The Create Leave Type & Assign Leave Policy wizard opens. Step 1 (Create Leave Type) has these fields:

Name

What the Leave Type is called everywhere in the app — request forms, calendar, reports, notifications. Pick something employees will instantly recognize (Vacation, Sick Day, Personal Day).

Color

The colour used to display this Leave Type on the Calendar and Wallchart so it's visually distinguishable from other types. Click the colour box to pick.

Show this leave type in your calendar as

A dropdown with two options that controls how the leave appears on connected personal calendars (Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal):

Busy (default) — blocks the User's calendar so meeting-scheduler tools see them as unavailable. Right for a normal absence.
Free — leaves them as available. Useful for Working from Home, where the User is online but not in the office.

In-app tooltip: "Choose 'Busy' for complete absence like vacation, signalling unavailability, or 'Free' for remote work days, indicating you're not in the office but available."

Set Slack Status

A toggle that's only meaningful if your account is connected to Slack. Turn it on and a follow-up field appears that maps this Leave Type to a Slack status emoji + text (e.g. "🌴 On Vacation"). When approved leave starts, Vacation Tracker will set the User's Slack status automatically; when it ends, it clears it.

Click Next to move to the Leave Policy setup.

Heads up

If the Name you typed is similar to a Leave Type that already exists (for example, "Vacation" when there's already a "Vacation Leave"), the wizard inserts a Similar Leave Type warning step. It tells you which existing type it matched, links you to the existing type's per-Location policies, and asks you to confirm with Yes, I want to create leave type before proceeding. The warning is meant to nudge you toward reusing one type across Locations rather than creating duplicates — User leave history is easier to follow when each kind of leave has a single, consistent type.

Step 2: Assign to Locations and Set the Initial Policy

This is where you tie the new Leave Type to one or more Locations and configure the starter rules. The header reads "Assign [Leave Type Name] to all locations or a specific location."

Wizard step showing Locations multi-select at top, Leave Policy fields (Approval Required, Allow Negative Balance, Unlimited Quota, Yearly Leave Quota, Shortest Leave Duration, Reason Required, Edit & Request Leaves In The Past, Hide Leave Type), Accruals section, Brought Forward Settings, Time Off In Lieu, with Back and Create And Assign buttons

Locations

Required. A multi-select that lists every Location on your account; all are pre-selected. Remove any where you don't want this Leave Type to apply. The same rules you configure below will be used as the starter policy on each Location you keep — you can fine-tune per-Location later from Leave Setup → Locations → Edit Leave Policies.

Leave Policy fields

Checkbox, on by default. When on, requests need an Approver to approve them before they're counted against the balance. When off, requests are auto-approved the moment they're submitted.

Lets a User submit a request even after they've used up their full quota — useful when you want to support borrowing against future leave. Combined with Negative Brought Forward (on the rollover settings), the deficit can carry into the next year.

Removes the cap on this Leave Type — turn it on for things like Working from Home where there's no fixed annual count. When this is on, the Yearly Leave Quota field is hidden because there's no number to set. Approval rules still apply.

What's Next?

How Do I Create and Configure Leave Policies? How Do I Sort the Order of Leave Types? Can Leave Types Automatically Update My Users' Slack Statuses?

Need help?

Regular Users: If you have any questions, email us anytime at hello@vacationtracker.io.
Admins and Approvers: You can reach us via live chat Monday to Friday, 9 AM – 5 PM EST, or email us anytime at hello@vacationtracker.io.

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